As it turned out, Janice had actually come onto Shane before we met, and when he turned her down—as he was always professional—she got pissed and began harboring resentment for him. When she met Rob Wartstorf, who also hated Shane for being more successful than him, she hatched a plan to get him out of the way so she and Rob, her new boyfriend, could go on to bigger and better things.
Needless to say, she and I were no longer friends.
And after that, Eleanor had also cut ties with Janice and given her cover shoot to someone else.
Me.
I’d never wanted to model, but after talking with her and Shane, I’d decided to take the job and see how it went. I would have been completely happy living with Shane as his wife for the rest of my life, never appearing in any publication at all, but they needed someone fast, so I said yes.
They were thrilled, and Eleanor said it was one of their best selling issues yet. Offers came flooding in to sign me to agencies, people wanting me to pose for them, but I turned them all down. I only shot with Shane.
I didn’t want to be globetrotting to Los Angeles and Europe and be away from him while he was back in New York shooting. I wanted to be at his side every day, and that’s what I was doing. If a magazine wanted me, they’d have to be okay with Shane shooting me, and even then I turned down most jobs.
The life of a model just wasn’t for me. It was exciting seeing myself on the High Style cover of course, but not as exciting as it was to feel my husband lips pressed against mine or to smell his smell when he came back to the apartment after a day’s work.
“I never thought I could be so happy,” I said, running my hand carelessly over my husband’s sculpted body.
“Me either.”
“It’s crazy isn’t it? If I hadn’t come along with Janice to the shoot, you and I never would have met. We wouldn’t be together.”
Shane shook his head and grinned. “No. I don’t believe that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “That’s what happened.”
“I know that, but we would have met someway or another.”
“Yeah?” I asked, feeling warm inside. “How do you know that?”
“I just know,” he said with that confident grin that made me melt. “Something would have brought us together somehow. We’re meant for each other, baby. You know that, right?”
I swelled with pride and giddiness and curled up as close to him as I could get.
“Of course, I know that, baby,” I smiled, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world. And that’s because I was. I really was.
The End.